A Walk Down the Aisle

The girl looked around the barn, and her anger seemed to grow. It radiated from her every pore like some hot, red aura.

Sophie wanted to say something to comfort her, but didn’t know where to begin. “Tori, I—”

The girl turned away. Sophie wasn’t sure if she was crying or simply too angry to speak. But Colton obviously had a lot to say. He started with, “You had a daughter and you never thought to mention it?”

Sophie wasn’t sure how to explain things to Colton or Tori. She didn’t know anything about the girl’s parents, but she knew that Colton’s family was a loving, supportive one. They filled the first two rows of seats in the field. How could she make him understand what it had been like for her at that time?

And how could she explain to this girl why she’d given her up? What words could a mother use to make Tori understand something like that?

Sophie swallowed. “Fourteen years ago, I was little more than a child myself when I gave birth to a baby girl. I never held her, and caught only the barest glimpse of her as they whisked her away.”

Tori whirled around and, rather than speaking to Sophie, she looked at Colton. “Yeah, she got rid of me. I was a burden. A mistake.” She faced Sophie, and practically screamed at her, “Did you ever even meet my parents or did you just hand me over to the agency and let them pick? Did you worry that they might beat me? Maybe they’d be crazy. Maybe they would go on and have a bunch of their own biological children and remind me every day that I’m not really theirs.”

Sophie knew that the girl had thrown those things out to hurt her, and even if none of them were true, Tori had succeeded. “I didn’t meet your parents, but I picked them.” She remembered that battle. She’d lost so many other fights then, but that had been one she’d been adamant about winning. If only the girl knew how hard Sophie had fought for at least that much—the ability to pick the couple who would raise her daughter.

“And I know that your mother had a hysterectomy, so she couldn’t have had any other children. Maybe they adopted more, but they didn’t have any biological kids. That’s one of the reasons I chose them. I wanted to be sure you were with people who would treasure you.”

Her answer didn’t mollify the girl. “Yeah, well, maybe they beat me.”

“Did they? Do they?” Sophie asked. She couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d had a dream like that—a nightmare. Her daughter was hungry. Her daughter was lost. Her daughter was hurt. And knowing that there was nothing she could do to help this child made it worse.

Tori was silent and finally shook her head. “No one beats me. My dad’s a pacifist. He won’t even kill flies.”

“Oh.” Sophie had so many questions. Fourteen years’ worth of questions, but she sensed that the girl wasn’t here to answer them. Tori wanted answers of her own.

And behind Tori, Sophie could see Colton. She could read him well enough to know that he was asking himself, if she could keep something that big from him, what else was she hiding?

She needed to explain why she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t lied, but she’d never told him. “Colton, I—”

“I asked you,” he said softly. “I asked if you had any family. It was our second month of dating and we’d gone to my parents’, and I asked if you had a family. And you said, ‘not anymore.’” He paused. “It was a lie.”

“Not in the way you think.” She didn’t know how to make him understand. “My family is complicated. And when you asked, we’d only been dating a couple months, and I’d just met your very wonderful family. I didn’t owe you answers about my less-than-wonderful one. Not then. And later...?” After that, he’d never asked again. And Sophie had been happy that she didn’t have to explain.

He removed the new cowboy hat from his head and ran his fingers through his hair. She’d been right—he’d used some sort of gel in it. Sophie wasn’t sure why that fact registered, but it did.

“Do you have family other than a daughter?” he barked.

“In a strictly biological way? Yes.”

She waited, anxious to hear what he would say. He simply nodded. “I’m going to go talk to the caterer and we’ll have them set up the meal at the diner. Then I’ll tell everyone the wedding’s off. You take Tori and go talk. It’s obvious you two have a lot to say to each other.”

He’d said the wedding was off. For today, or forever? “What about us?”

Normally she could read Colton like an open book. But now, the book had slammed shut, and all he said was, “We’ll talk later. In the morning. Right now, you need to deal with Tori. I’ll send everyone home. Why don’t you take your...daughter, and slip out before someone corners you.”

She’d hoped he’d say, Talk to Tori, then meet me in front of the minister, we’ll work it all out. But he was calling off the wedding. They’d “talk” about it tomorrow.

Sophie had planned for any number of emergencies with the wedding, but not this. Not a returning long-lost daughter.

And not the man who was supposed to love her leaving.

There was nothing to do but nod at Colton and watch him stride back to their guests, her heart breaking into a million little pieces. She waited, silently pleading for him to stop and come back to her, but he didn’t.

“Let’s go to my house where we can talk,” she said to Tori. Her daughter.

* * *

COLTON LIKED TO THINK of himself as a simple man.

He knew he was a man of few words, but he tried to make the words he did utter count.

He tried to tell Sophie daily that he loved her. He tried to show her in his every action.

He tried to be there for his friends. For Finn, who’d suffered so much when he lost his sister Bridget last winter, and for Sebastian, who’d come home physically damaged and emotionally battered.

Yes, Colton had been content with his straightforward bachelor farmer’s life, and then Sophie Johnston had breezed into Valley Ridge. Meeting her had changed everything. His dreams expanded to include her at his side, and raising a family here together on his grandfather’s farm.

When she’d come down the aisle toward him, she’d been walking toward that simple future, as well.

I object.

Those two little words had changed everything.

He’d thought he knew everything there was to know about Sophie, but it turned out she wasn’t an orphan with a past that was too painful to talk about. She had family. And she had a daughter.

A daughter she’d given away.

Colton had always lived life on an even keel. Now his life was anything but. He motioned to Sebastian. “The wedding’s off. Do you mind if I have the caterers take the food to the diner? I know that means you’ll have to open, but—”

His friend smacked his shoulder—a guy’s form of comfort. “There’s no buts. Consider it done.”

“Thanks. If people ask what happened, tell them that I’ll explain later. First I have to figure it out for myself.”

He turned to the wedding guests. Most of them were friends he’d had since childhood. His family filled the first two rows, and he wondered how he’d explain today to them, especially when he could hardly wrap his brain around it himself.

He stood in front of what seemed like the entire community and said, “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, but the wedding’s canceled. I talked to the caterer and they’re moving all the food to the diner. Please feel free to stop in and help yourself. And please, those who’ve brought gifts, retrieve them on your way out.”

With that, he turned, strode up the aisle and raced off down the hill toward the farm. He was a simple man—too simple perhaps to know how to handle something this decidedly unsimple.

* * *

SOPHIE HAD DRIVEN to Colton’s that morning. She hadn’t intended on driving back to her house today. They were supposed to leave for their honeymoon tonight. No cruise or European vacation. They’d borrowed their friends’ cabin in the Poconos for the week. Only the two of them in the mountain retreat. Long walks. Quiet days. A perfect way to start a life together.

And now? Sophie wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. She wanted to find Colton and throw herself in his arms. She wanted to be back at the arbor he’d built for her, saying I do in front of all their friends, then walking down to the barn for their reception. She wanted to dance with Colton and cut the cake, and...

Instead, she drove the now-silent teen back to her house. “Let’s go talk.”

Sophie noticed the big scuff mark on her front door as they walked up the stairs but didn’t comment as she let Tori inside. Sophie led her into the small but functional living room, and nodded at the red plaid couch. Tori slouched onto it and then glared as Sophie sat next to her.

“Why don’t you start,” she said softly. “You came to find me because...?”

“Why did I find you?” Tori’s voice was quiet, but that only made it easier to hear the anger reverberating in every syllable. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m going about my very normal life when I discover I’m not who I thought I was. I thought I was Gloria and Dom’s daughter. I thought my mother was a college president and my dad was a stay-at-home painter. I thought my grandparents were ex-hippie farmers. Instead, I find out I’m adopted and I don’t know anything about my real family. I found out that the reason I didn’t inherit any of my dad’s artistic genes is ’cause I don’t have his genes. And I didn’t get mom’s academic brain ’cause I don’t have her genes, either.”

“So you want to know about my genes?” Sophie asked quietly. She’d dreamed of this. Meeting her daughter. But in those dreams, there had been a happy, albeit tearful, reunion.

Not being battered by wave after wave of anger.

“Hell, no,” Tori barked. “I don’t care about your genes. I want to know how someone just gives their baby away. I wanted to see you. I want a freakin’ explanation. I deserve that much.”

“You do deserve that much and so much more. It’s a long story,” Sophie said. “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about with that guy you were about to marry. I take it he’s not my father?” Tori asked.

“No. Your father was my high school boyfriend. His name was Shawn and I thought I was in love. For that one blink of an eye, I thought Shawn and I would be together through everything. Anything.”

As she remembered those long-ago feelings, she recognized how shallow they were. She so wished Colton had been Tori’s father. He’d have stood by her. He’d have done the right thing, no matter how hard it was. By right thing, she didn’t mean marry her. She might have been young, but even when she was pregnant with Tori, she’d known she never wanted anyone to feel obligated to stand by her. By right thing, she meant he’d have stayed and helped raise the child they’d created. Colton would have supported her against her parents, and she had no doubt that with Colton by her side, she’d have won.

“And the guy, this Shawn, who was my real father. He didn’t want me, either?”

She longed to say something to help Tori. To ease her anger. But she knew what it was like to feel betrayed by a parent, and she didn’t think there were any words that would erase that kind of pain. She’d try, though. “Shawn. Shawn Mayburn was his full name, in case you want it. He—we—were both kids. Not much older than you are now. We were high school sweethearts, making plans for our future. He’d go to college two years before me, but that was okay, because he’d be able to show me the ropes when I got there. We’d get our degrees, backpack through Europe and then...well, things got fuzzy then. Still, we knew we’d have a phenomenal life. We had all kinds of ideas. But we didn’t plan on having a baby—at least not when we were still in our teens. Please, Tori, no matter what you think of me, you have to know you were always, always wanted. And loved.”

Tori reached out and snagged a corner of the throw over the back of the couch. She rubbed a section between her forefinger and thumb, and finally asked, “So, what happened? If you wanted me and loved me, and you loved my father, how come you let me be adopted?”

“I—” This had been a whirlwind, but suddenly Sophie realized that she hadn’t asked. “Where are your parents?”

“I—” This time it was Tori who hesitated.

Sophie might be brand-new at parenting, but even she could see the guilt written all over Tori’s face. “Do they know you’re here?”

Tori shook her head. “No.”

“You ran away?”

“Not exactly.” Guilt clearly replaced Tori’s anger. “I ran to, not away. I ran to you. To find you and find some answers.”

“You need to call your parents right now,” Sophie said. She could only imagine how scared they must be.

“No.”

“Tori, this isn’t negotiable. I’ll answer any questions you have as honestly as I can, but I won’t tell you another thing until you call your parents and tell them where you are.”

“I’m not what they want,” Tori blurted out, the pain of that knowledge—right or wrong—evident in her voice. “When I found out, I realized how disappointed they must be that they adopted a clunker kid. Mom makes her living educating kids, yet has one who doesn’t get straight As. I get Bs and sometimes Cs except with anything technology. Those classes I always ace, but it’s not really academic, is it? I have a bizarre sense of how things work. I’ll never read Proust for fun. I’m Mom’s big disaster. And Dad, he’d love an artsy sort of vegan kid, and instead he has a hamburger-eating one who can paint the walls in her room, but not much else. They’re both extraordinary, and I’m...I’m not. I’m an average kid.”

“So you looked up your biological mom because you wanted someone to blame for your mediocrity?” Sophie asked. She realized it came out snarky, but listening to Tori, she thought that maybe her daughter needed a bit of snark if those were her biggest complaints about her parents.

Tori shrugged. “Maybe partly. Maybe I wanted to find you and find there was something special about me. And maybe I hoped that I’d find someone who understood. Maybe there was some genetic...”

Sophie filled in the blank. “A mediocrity gene?”

“It sounds stupid when you say it.” She rubbed the afghan harder.

“Maybe it is. Here’s how I see it. You are who you are. Part of that is the genes I gave you. Part of that comes from Shawn’s genes. Part of that is the way your parents raised you. And part of that, the biggest part, is you...the essence of you. No amount of genes or environment can change that essence.”

“So I’m screwed.” Tori slouched even further.

Sophie might not have ever parented a child, but she’d seen Bridget, and now Mattie, holler at a kid without saying a word. She tried quirking her eyes and frowning at Tori’s totally awful word choice.

It got the desired result.

Tori raked her hand through her short blue hair. “Sorry. I am sorry for everything. I didn’t come here to ruin your life, too.”

“You haven’t ruined my life.” Sophie wanted more than anything to reach out and hug this child she’d fought so hard for. This child she’d thought of every day for fourteen years. This child she loved.

But she didn’t have the right.

“Maybe I didn’t ruin your life, but I definitely ruined your wedding.”

Sophie thought about Colton’s expression when she told him that, yes, she’d had a child. The pain and the accusations there. “Colton loves me, and I love him. We’ll figure it out,” she said with more confidence than she felt. She needed to get back to finding out where Tori’s parents were, and having her call them.

“It’s just that, I got to town and everything was closed for a wedding, then I got to your house and you weren’t here. This cop stopped and thought I was a guest and that I missed the bus to the wedding. Your wedding. I thought it was a great opportunity to see you without introducing myself, without explaining who I was. So I sat in the back, and then there you were, so beautiful and so happy as you walked down the aisle. And these ladies in front of me whispered that you were perfect, and you and Colton were perfect together. I...”

“You?” Sophie prompted.

“I was so angry. How could you be that happy when you gave me away? I was an inconvenience, and you took care of it by getting rid of it. You went on to build this perfect life...without me. I was so mad when the minister started talking and I knew that you were leaving me again. You were going on with your happy life without a thought of me. Then I was standing, objecting...”

There was so much pain. Not anger like Sophie had thought, but straight-up raw and deep pain. And Sophie knew everything Tori was feeling was her fault. She’d done this. She’d made the best—maybe the only—decision she could. She’d tried to give her daughter everything she’d never had. A nurturing, loving family. And all she’d managed to do was hurt her. “Tori, I’m so sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry.” Tori had tears in her eyes. “I screwed up your life. Getting rid of me was probably the smartest thing you ever did.”

“Losing you... I didn’t get rid of you, I didn’t throw you away. I lost you.” Sophie recalled when the doctor said she’d had a baby girl, and how she shouted about wanting to hold her, but her mother had been there, shaking her head. They’d taken Sophie’s baby away, and all she remembered after that was screaming until a nurse gave her a shot of something that knocked her out. Then it was the next day and her baby was gone.

She’d never held her baby. But she’d had some comfort imagining her baby’s adopted mother holding her. She’d thought about how joyful her baby’s parents must have been after trying for so long to have a baby.

“How did you lose me?” Tori asked.

Sophie offered a weak smile, emotions rolling and mixing together into a tsunami of feelings that she couldn’t sort out. “I wanted what was best for you, and best for you wasn’t being raised by a mother who didn’t even have a high school diploma and who had no way of earning enough money to support you. I lost you because I loved you that much. I swear we’ll talk about all of it, but not now. Right now we need to call your parents.”

“Why don’t you call them my adopted parents? You’re my mother.”

“No, I am the woman who gave birth to you when I was little more than a girl myself.” That was the moment she stopped being a girl. She’d lived her entire adult life with the pain of not being able to hold her baby, or to keep her, embedded in her soul.

“They are your parents. They’re the ones who made you feel better when you were little. They’re the ones who know you best. They know your favorite color. They were there your first day of school. They came and comforted you when you had a bad dream.” At least she hoped they’d done all that. Things like that were what she longed for growing up. She had wanted to give the gift of those moments to her daughter.

Quietly Sophie asked the questions she needed answers to. “Did they ever hurt you?”

“You mean like hit me or lock me in closets?” Tori shook her head. “No. They love me...or love the me they want me to be. But I’m never going to be a straight-A student. And I’m never going to be an artist or even a vegan. I can’t be. They gave me everything, and I’m still a screwup.”

“You’re perfect,” Sophie told her.

Tori snorted.

“You can’t be what they envision, or even what I envision. And if no one else has ever mentioned it, let me assure you that you shouldn’t try to be what any of us want. You need to be you. And you’re perfect at that...at least you’re perfectly equipped to do that. To be the person you’re meant to be.”

“So, your day job is writing lyrics for bad country songs?” Tori sniped.

“I wish someone had said those words to me when I was growing up. Even more, I wish I’d figured that all out when I was still in my teens.”

Tori didn’t say anything this time. Sophie pushed. “I need your parents’ number.”

“I won’t go back.”

There was a stubbornness in Tori’s expression, and Sophie could hear her mother telling her, “I hate it when you look like that. Like you’re almost daring me to try and get you to...”

The getting-you-to changed. Her mother had tried to get her to do ballet. Sophie had refused after the first few lessons. She’d hated it. If there was a rhythm gene, then she had received the antirhythm variety. There had been other attempts at getting-her-to. Piano. Drawing lessons.

Which made her think of Tori’s artist father. “You need to call them.”

“I came here to know you, and I’m not going back yet. I have so many questions, and if you try to get rid of me again, I’ll run away and—”

“No threats,” Sophie warned. “Don’t say things you might feel obligated to make good on. Legally, I’m nothing to you. They’re your parents, and I guarantee they’re worried.”

“I—”

Sophie interrupted again. “No excuses, no threats. The number. We’ll call them and then we’ll work something out. Even if they take you home right away, you’ll go knowing that I love you. That I never gave you away. And that that was the single most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. If your parents do insist that you leave now, then when you’re old enough, you’ll come back and we’ll talk. No matter what, you’ll know you’re loved. Maybe you don’t believe it but, Tori, of all the things you need me to tell you, that’s the most important thing. You were loved. You are loved. You were wanted. You are wanted. And as far as I’m concerned, not knowing anything more about you than the fact you’re tenacious, you have blue hair and you’re very angry, I still know that you are absolutely perfect.” And for the first time ever, Sophie leaned over and touched her daughter. She gently ran a finger over Tori’s cheek, brushing against a strand of her blue hair.

It was such an easy gesture, but Sophie knew that she’d remember that one small touch for the rest of her life.

“But...” Tori started, then looked at Sophie and nodded. She rattled off a number.

Sophie dialed, and felt sick as she said, “Hello, uh, you don’t know me...I’m Sophie, I gave birth to your daughter fourteen years ago. Tori’s here with me now....”

CHAPTER TWO

IT TOOK A LITTLE MORE than two hours for the Allens to drive from their home outside Cleveland, Ohio, to Valley Ridge, New York. The little slip of Pennsylvania that stood between the two states didn’t usually take a long time to navigate.

After she’d made the call, Sophie had slipped off her wedding dress and hung it carefully in her closet. She’d stroked the material for a minute and tried to imagine what she would be doing now at the reception. She shut the door on that fantasy. She knew that life wasn’t a fantasy. She’d met Colton and, temporarily, she’d forgotten that fact.

She slipped on a pair of jeans and a blouse. She thought about taking her hair down, but there were so many bobby pins, and so much hairspray in it, she didn’t think she could until she showered.

She didn’t want to lose a minute of her time with Tori to showering, so she’d gone back into the living room. She’d stood in the doorway, drinking in the sight of her daughter on her couch. Anger. Pain. Blue hair. Still gripping the throw on the couch between her finger and thumb. Every inch of Tori was...perfect.

She wished she could make her daughter see that.

During those one hundred and twenty minutes they waited for Tori’s parents to arrive, Tori peppered Sophie with questions ranging from her family’s medical history to Sophie’s educational background. She asked about Sophie’s job here in Valley Ridge.

She didn’t ask again why Sophie had given her up.

She didn’t ask about her father.

The questions she didn’t ask bothered Sophie more than the ones she did.

Tori startled when the doorbell rang. “It’s them, isn’t it?”

Sophie nodded. “I imagine so. Do you want to get the door, or shall I?”

“You. They’re going to kill me.”

Sophie got up and, before going to the door, walked by her daughter and patted her shoulder to comfort her and to allow herself one more touch. She went to the small foyer and opened the door. The woman, Tori’s mother, wore a pair of black pants, low heels and a no-nonsense fitted white blouse. She was wearing a very classic set of pearls and had pearl studs in her earlobes. Her light blond hair was pulled back into a chignon.